Finally Friday!

It is gloomy and cold outdoors, and I'm having a bit of a Nancy day (Negative Nancy, that is), but the thought of the weekend ahead has me smiling!  First up, my parents are coming to town!  For Christmas, all of us kiddos went in together to buy them Cirque du Soleil Allegria tickets here in Tulsa.  When I went to purchase their tickets, it was Cyber Monday, and tickets were half price, so of course, I snatched some up for hubby and me as well.  The big event is tomorrow evening, but tonight we have Cultural Night at Blake's school!  We attended last year and it was a lot of fun to see different performances, and especially to taste different foods.  I had tabouleh for the first time (yum), and I'm excited to see what this year's evening has to offer. 

What are your plans for the weekend?

Chicago... shopping, food, and public transportation!

In the midst of the snow Armageddon that was Tulsa, I hoped on a plane for a long weekend in Chicago!  Two of my sorority sisters, Susan and Heather, live up there and I've been planning on visiting for the last ummm, 4 years.  So, when a great deal on plane tickets came up, I pounced on them, along with two of our other sorority sisters.  Unfortunately, due to the snow, one of the girls had to cancel, but Dee and I still made it up there! 

She and I met up on my second flight, so my flight from Tulsa to STL was my very first solo plane ride.  I was really nervous, as I normally self medicate with Dramamine for flights, due to a weak stomach.  However, this tends to knock me out, and I didn't think it would be in a good idea to be in a fog while looking for my connecting gate, and I didn't want to miss out on any of my time in Chi Town!  I handled the flight fairly well, and, after purchasing a 3 day pass for public transportations, we met up with Susan.

Our big plans for the weekend were food, shopping, and girl time, so after seeing Susan's adorable apartment, we got ready for dinner out at a yummy sushi place.  SO GOOD!  After our rolls, Susan told us we had to try Mochi Ice Cream, and I also had some Bubble tea.  The sushi was definitly better than the Mochi and Bubble tea, but I'm glad we tried them!

For day two, we started with something that Susan had always wanted to do in the four years she's lived in Chicago- we went ice skating in Millennium Park.  We didn't last long, but we met Susan's goal! 

We then took some photos with the nearby "Cloud Gate", more commonly referred to as "The Bean".  The last set of photos was all my idea and both girls were actually making fun of me until they saw the picture, then they joined in!  See guys, not all of my ideas are crazy!

The rest of the day was filled with cupcakes, shopping on Michigan Ave, and site seeing.  Then we ate some yummy Mexican for dinner.  I am not normally a fan of rice- unless it's surrounding fish, but I had the most delicious Cilantro Lime rice at this place that I immediately tried to replicate upon my return to OK.  I've gotten pretty close!

Day three was Superbowl Sunday, and our chance to meet up with Heather, who had been in Vegas for the weekend!  Fabulous trip with fabulous friends!

Dining room redo!

While all the snow was falling here in Oklahoma, we were making a big change in our dining area. We had a pretty clean slate to start with:

Boring, neutral, blah blah blah.  The table and chairs were actually purchased from a college roommate, and while they have been perfect for hosting friends and family, it was time for a bit of an update.  And so, I announced to Blake that I was going to paint them white.  I googled how to paint wood furniture, he laid down a tarp (no way was I painting out in the freezing cold garage), and I started on step one: sanding.

 Sanding= boring.  And tedious, and boring some more.  So, as I finished up the table and side table, I decided the chair didn't really need to be sanded.  Now, some sites had said sanding wasn't always necessary, so I wasn't too worried about skipping this step on the chairs.

Then came step two: primer.  Except we didn't have any primer.  And there was over 14 inches of snow on the ground, so a quick trip to Walmart wasn't an option.  So, I pulled on my non waterproof suede boots, and trudged over to our nice neighbors house to ask to borrow some.  Some neighbors borrow an egg, or a cup of sugar, but I go for Kilz water based primer.

 So then once everything was primed, I got to painting.  Just joking.  By the time everything was sanded and primed, I had been working on this stuff for about 7 hours and I was dunzo for the day.  I was also kind of regretting my decision to start this massive project.  I mean really, what's wrong with neutral and boring?

However, apparently primer is not an acceptable final look so the next morning I started the first coat of paint.  The first of four coats.  Five in some areas.  And somewhere between coat two and three I started thinking very not nice thoughts about all of my favorite home improvement blogs.  Blogs that had led me to believe that it's easy to paint wood furniture.  That the money you save is worth the time and energy you pour into the project.  I started to think they were all a bunch of LIARS.  Nice liars, but liars nonetheless.

Midway through the second day, we ventured out to pick up some paint for our accent wall.  We had gotten curtain material (score!) from Blake's grandma, from some old curtains she didn't use anymore, and when we put them up we realized they didn't exactly "pop" against our neutral wall.  You can see the beginnings of the blue we chose in the background of the above image.  Blake actually painted that whole wall while I was in Chicago for my birthday, and when I got back we finished up the rest of the furniture.  We also bought a bench for our dining set and Blake hung the rest of the curtains this past week.  Without further adieu, here's the finished product:

We're really happy with how it turned out!  I still need to work on some different artwork, and I bought a vintage Pottery Barn table runner on ebay I'm still waiting on, but this is what the room currently looks like.  Definitely a big improvement!  What do you think?

Snow-klahoma!

This post is a bit delayed, but I didn't want to let the blizzard of 2011 completely pass without mentioning it here on the blog.  My 26th birthday was February 1st, and that was also the day we got 14 inches of SNOW!!!  Blake's classes were canceled, my work closed, and I got 4 snow days for a birthday present:)  We never lost power, so I actually really enjoyed the time off.  I noticed over on Facebook a lot of people complaining about cabin fever a day or so in and personally, I thought they were all crazy!  Everyone always talks about never having the opportunity to slow down, or having enough time at home with loved ones, and then it was dropped in our laps and they were all complaining!  We took the snow days as a little stay-cation, filled with sleeping late, snuggling, watching movies, and eating way too much food!

The view out our front door- still snowing!

Blake and Gus playing in the snow- Gus LOVES the snow!

But of course I couldn't be completely lazy for long- Wednesday I started in on redoing our dining room.  But that's a story for another blog post- don't worry, I've been taking photos!  If you're in Oklahoma, how did you spend your snow vacation?